We need to find a new measure of unemployment that factors in those who are so disillusioned and disenfranchised by either the job market or specifically, the competition from automation and artificial intelligence that they have given up the search for full-time employment.

For two years, historians, economists and others have pondered whether western leaders, facing a growing populist challenge, must prepare for an even greater temblor resembling the French Revolution or 1930s fascism.